Don't eat the xenocrab sushi
by BlueNynaeve
Summary: John McKenna aka Mick is brought on board the Enterprise by Dr. Puri ala Jim and Bones, but misses all of the action due to lungworm.


John McKenna, a.k.a. Mick, could feel his body long before he knew he was awake. For the most part, everything felt all right, present with that peculiar pain-med lightness accompanied by hyperawareness of his body's weight pressing down into the mattress; everything except for his stomach, which he could feel in his abdomen as a throbbing neon-pink mass blinking stabbing pain. Oh, and his bladder which was slowly making itself known by its fullness. So while his stomach said "Unconscious - good", his bladder said, "Wake up, you fool."

As he got closer to consciousness, other senses such as taste (worst morning breath ever) and hearing started kicking in. He knew Hikaru was in the room sleeping too - that snoring could only be a completely exhausted Hikaru deep in REM. Eventually, his bladder got louder, and he made the effort to come to full consciousness so he could make it to the ensuite fresher before the poor thing rebelled. Sitting up was not fun, more of a roll to an elbow then hand while his legs fell off the side of the bed, that bloated mass of stomach protesting the entire time.

_He was never eating raw xeno-crab rolls ever again..._

Standing was easier and shuffling to the fresher was a piece of cake as long as he didn't let his brain focus on anything except "forward" and "don't trip". There were an awful lot of clothes on the floor - Hikaru was usually such a tidy soul, he must have been really exhausted. "Vulcan earthquakes must have been bad. I hope too many people didn't die." Mick thought. He knew he wasn't insensitive to others' loss, but anything that mobilized eight Federation ships so quickly that more than half the crews were cadets with little to no logged space-time was a big emergency, and big emergencies always had casualties, because sometimes all you could do was stem the tide. He was almost glad he had been out with lungworm. He knew Christine would have been dragging Hikaru thru all of the chaos as her personal shuttle pilot and corpsman, no matter how many medics and corpsmen might have been assigned to her for triage as Head Nurse. That was the problem with any emergency - you could always use another set of hands.

Okay, really he was just trying to assuage his own guilt - laid low by a stupid parasite, when he could have been helping others, not being waited on by Dr. Puri and - oh, fuck. Not earthquakes, attack. Dr. Puri was dead, and in the chaos of moving to the backup infirmary, Mick had been sent to his room to wait out the parasite with pain meds and a booster hypo of xeno-steroids by Christine and McCoy. Mick wondered if anyone else had died in the attack - after that initial hit, things had been a blur of motion and then medication once he got to his room. He didn't even really remember how he got to his room, just remembered being grateful that as Captain Pike's second officer and bridge crew he rated a single with an ensuite fresher.

_In fact, no raw xeno-crab anything..._

Finishing up, he folded away the commode and stepped onto the sonic pad for a quick hygienic. Didn't do anything for his pain, but at least his mouth didn't taste like dirty toes. He popped a couple more pain meds from the bottle on the sink, dry swallowing, and squinted at himself in the mirror. He looked like shit - bags under his bloodshot eyes, stubbly jaw tight with pain, lips cracked and almost white. Downgrade that to week-old shit. Really, how long had it been? His stubble was definitely longer than just one day's passing - maybe three days. Had he really been out of it that long?

"Computer, stardate?"

"Stardate is 2159.04.12 Delta 03.27"

Four and a half days since they had left Earth. Fuck, he'd been out of it too long, but he was just so tired and hurting. And it was late. Maybe one more little nap, then he would call Christine right before Alpha shift. Or make Hikaru call her. If it had been four days, she must have checked in on him already. He knew she was too organized to let a patient malinger due to neglect even if she was run ragged by anything unplanned. Plus he was a friend and those she definitely took care of, practically mothered. He must be doing okay, pain and grogginess notwithstanding. His stomach clenched as he forced his thoughts away from the worry that one of his closest friends might be hurt and unable to check in on him.

_Maybe no parties with any sort of raw xeno-crab..._

The fresher door whooshed out of his way as he shuffled back to bed again wholly concentrating on his bare feet half-covered by too-long faded orange penguin pajama pants as they moved across the grey carpet tiles. When he had his butt firmly planted on the edge of his bunk, he looked up, hoping that the force of his gaze alone could stop the train wreck of noise emanating from his roommate. His gaze stuttered to a stop at the edge of Hikaru's makeshift bed on the bunk that was really supposed to be a deep couch for the second officer's single quarters. Starfleet issued white sheets, grey blankets, Hikaru's muscled arm bent around smooth pale shoulders, golden tresses flowing across a little blue butterfly - the fuck! What was Christine doing naked in Hikaru's bed? In fact, what were Christine and Hikaru doing in his room at all? As Beta pilot and Head Nurse, they should have had their own singles - no need for either of them to flee a bad roomie by bunking with him.

Looking a little closer, Mick suddenly knew he had missed more than just four days worth of time. Although he was clearly asleep, Hikaru's hand was clenched in Christine's hair; his knuckles strained white like something might try to rip her from him. Christine's aspect mirrored Hikaru's visible terror - her own knuckles white where her left hand gripped his elbow, her right interlocked with his left on the pillow near his ear. And Hikaru had tear tracks running down the side of his face. Mick couldn't see Christine's face pressed into Hikaru's neck, but her soft deep breathing was interrupted by little sobbing hitches every so often indicating she had fallen asleep while crying too.

_... or any sort of crab dish..._

He toppled back onto his bunk, too weary to pull the blankets over himself as the pain medication kicked in. Mick became aware that the clenching in his gut was due as much to worry as the lingering effects of the lungworm. What had happened since they came on the Enterprise four days ago? These were his two best friends and two of the most phlegmatic people he knew. He had seen them in some of the scariest situations he had ever experienced, admittedly sometimes self-induced, and neither one had ever been less than unflappable and certainly never once showed a crack of fear before, during, or after the events in question. Suddenly he was glad his friends had crashed in his room. He didn't know what had happened, but at least he knew they were alive for now.

* * *

><p><em>AN: This is a one-shot scene set between a couple of chapters in my partially written saga of Christine Chapel and Hikaru Sulu where they know everyone at the Academy including Kirk/McCoy, Uhura/Spock, Chekov (of McStories' Grischa), and even Scotty. I got the idea from a McCoy story where he finds out that McKenna was brought on board as Dr. Puri's patient and has to follow up. Sorry that I'm not citing properly, if anyone knows the story title/author, please let me know._


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